How poor is poor?

True ONW

To elaborate for Riverwalk, what I meant with the sneaky suspicion is that I know people, often pensioners, who have very little but do not consider themselves poor as long as they can pay their bills, have food to eat, etc. whilst I also know people like my husband's grandson of 19, who considers himself very poor because he cannot afford all of the latest XBox games as soon as they become available, but does not see the need to get a job to pay for them - just as a comparison.

I guess it's like everything, poverty is relative, what's poor to one is fairly well off to the next.

A great uncle at 7 years old did the odd job for a farmer - his mother a single parent couldn't afford the school fee. Uncle Sam found an egg laid by one of the farmers hens and she have it to Uncle Sam for his honesty. It was the first egg he had ever had.

Not knowing how you are going to pay your basic general living costs at the end of each week or month. In that I include heating, housing costs, food, basic clothing and the costs of your transport to work.

Imagine someone living in a tied cottage, wife of gardener to posh big house. One night she, and her children were very cold. No money for coal (the only heating in tied cottage) so she sneaked a shovelful from the coal bunker of big house. Lady of the big house found out and actually took her to court. (Judge threw it out)

That's poor.

Imagine your child asking if you can have two ounces of sweets and the Mum looks in her purse, and all there is in it is a little gold safety pin!

That's poor.

I could go on. But it's in the past now. Best not dwell on the hard life they had.

Nina I suppose it depends on one's definition of 'poor'.

There are certainly pensioners on low incomes but do you know any who can't afford to eat well, heat the house, dress appropriately, have a few treats, etc?

The definition of poverty has certainly changed over the years.As living standards get better for the general populace then the definition must change also.

Poverty today isn't the same as our parents and grandparents days , I doubt women have to wash out their on,y pair of knickers at night and dry them on newspaper in the oven - an elderly lady told me this is what she did when left a widow with four sone.

One thing which hasn't changed is poverty can break people's spirits, takes away hope or drives them into the clutches of firms such as Provident . And what makes it harder is tv - just think of the Christmas adverts.

Also people in poverty today are now regarded as those in poverty were regarded in the late nineteenth century , they are classed benefit scroungers, too lazy to work, not able to run a home and cook as their grandmothers did, and god forbid if they have a tv and mobile phone . No allowance or understanding for low intelligence, even criticised for having too many children. To be constantly criticised takes away any self respect

OlderNoWiser
I think many of us can identify with your father's life, most children left school at 14 in those days and had to find work however clever they were.
And I remember ice on the inside of the windows when I was a child, having the toes cut out of my sandals to make them last that bit longer etc etc.

Being poor (which I think we were when we were bringing up the DC) is different from living in poverty imo.
Scrimping, making do and mending but being just able to pay the bills, feed the children, clothe them (albeit in home-made or hand-me-downs) etc. But they always had decent shoes and warm coats. Children grow and need new clothes and shoes - Mums don't so they can wear the same old things for years!

Poverty would mean you cannot afford the basics.

Annie how sad.
I agree with MamaCaz that being poor and living in poverty are different. I think DD would class herself as poor. We've always had to bail her out even when she was still with SiL and they were both working. They certainly never had savings to cover emergencies. Bills sometimes not being able to be payed on time, whatever food they could afford etc.despite two incomes.
However she has never lived in poverty, has always had a roof over her head (with help ) clothes and food.
Riverwalk I totally disagree there are many poor pensioners. I'm very fortunate to not be one of them thanks to DH's pensions which amount to an income of upper teens. Due to him being made redundancy at 60 we have no mortgage and a fairly healthy savings pot.
If you have to look at every penny you spend and save for everything but the basics then in MHO your poor. Sorry if that offends anyone I mean it in purely a financial sense and there is no shame in having a low income.

Older you say I have a sneaky suspicion that the definition of poor has changed somewhat

As you started the thread, can you elaborate on this i.e. what is it that you're trying to say?

Poverty is when you live in a caravan and come home one day to find it stolen - the caravan and all your possessions. This happened to my daughter and sil and it took a long time to recover. Can you imagine having to replace everything - clothes, plates, cutlery, bedding - and find somewhere else to live (a barge!). We visited car boot sales for weeks. If she hadn't had our support I don't know what would have happened.

Jinglebells, just to clarify, I am asking for other people's definition of poor here, not because I don't know what it means.

I, too, remember a childhood of living in a rented flat where the only means of heating was a coal fired range in the kitchen, where our family life took place from September to April, as the rest of the place had ice on the inside of the window panes, making it impossible stay there very long.

Luckily my mother was from a dirt poor family herself and knew how to stretch the almost non-existent budget, so we never went hungry, although as the youngest of six cousins my first piece of "new" clothing, i.e. one that was not a hand-me-down, was a shirt I bought with my first wages.

My father, the most intelligent man I have ever known, had to go out to work at 14 to bring in some money, as my grandfather came back from the war as an invalid, so there was no chance of a higher education for him. They could simply not afford for him not work as soon as possible.

I have a sneaky suspicion that the definition of poor has changed somewhat over the last 60 years or so, which was one reason for my question.

Oh annie

Cutting one's cloth is so easy. One reads the electric meter every night to work out how much you have spent in electricity in one day and working out what else you can switch off. Pray your child doesn't want to go on a school trip. Doesn't want to join ballet classes with their friends . Wearing sandals in winter untill you can save for a pair of shoes . Explaining to your children why they can't have a treat such as fish and chips from the chip shop. Why they can't join in after school activities . Using tea bags several times. Unable to afford meat for a Sunday roast. Weeping buckets if any white goods need replacing.

Nothing to it,

On a pension, under £9000 a year!

Going to Lidl (poor old me...) and coming across a youngish couple debating whether to spend 40p. Their last 40p. That's poverty!

My income is far below the 24k figure atm but I own property outright, have a bit in the bank and a pension of a sort.

I don't know I'm born, really..

Personally, I don't think of being 'poor' and living in 'poverty' as quite the same thing.

To me, 'poor' can be used to describe those who have just enough to live on, to cover their basic needs, enough even (if they 'cut their cloth' accordingly) to be able to cope when, for example, the washing machine dies and has to be replaced. Not enough, however, to afford any of life's little luxuries, such as a meal out, at the drop of a hat.

'Poverty', however, I see as not having enough income, no matter how you 'cut your cloth'. to guarantee covering most basic needs every month, let alone be able to make any provision for things like a washing machine breaking down (or even replacing a watch battery!). Living like that, knowing that homelessness is a very real possibility, must be absolutely awful.

A few weeks ago I made a point of going to the supermarket near closing time on a Sunday, to see if I could pick up any bargains. I was shocked to see a number of people already hanging around the meat and bread isles with the same idea. The reason for my shock was their appearance, which left me in no doubt that they were in genuine need of the cheap food.
Having made the trip to the supermarket, I didn't want to leave empty handed, and grabbed myself a pack of frying steak for 27p. Ever since then, I've felt awful about this. Their need was so much greater than mine.
To compound my guilt, I only managed to get it by taking it from the employee's trolley before he'd even put it on the shelf. I only got away with it because I was a 'normal' shopper. Those desperate people were being shouted at and treated like animals as they tried to get the things from the shelves and certainly wouldn't have been allowed to do what I had done.

That incident opened my eyes to true need, and although I can't do anything to help those particular individuals now, I will now donate to the food bank whenever I have the opportunity.

Such a difficult question- I suppose poverty is so relative to your location and culture. Poor is not having a large % of what others around you have here- rather than no food. And yes part of it is due to poor choices... eg spending money on non essential and then not having money for such (good food, heating, etc). Truth is though, is that those in real poverty now in the UK are so due to debt for above- and extortionate rates of repayment, taking large amounts of what is coming in.

There are no longer poor pensioners - I think the younger low-wage/unemployed are the new poor.

£24,000 isn't a lot of money when you have high housing costs - it doesn't leave much for them to live on.

I remember reading years ago what was considered the seminal tome on this subject by Townsend called Poverty where he described the difference between real poverty and relative poverty. I cant remember it all of course but the gist was that real poverty was being unable to feed, clothe and house yourself and relative poverty was having less than others around in you in your peer group - I think I may have got that wrong.

Today it horrifies me to read than we have hundreds of thousands of children (and of course their parents) who are homeless and often have to go hungry and that is poverty of any definition to me.

No I'm not poor but I have been as a child, not as poor as my parents - my father didn't have any shoes so couldn't go to school and often went hungry. I haven't ever forgotten what it was like or ceased to be grateful for what I have now.

It was worth saying twice though. Cos it's true.

I live on much, much less than the figure you quote, but manage ok
and have everything I need. It's much harder for young families I think.
I have great sympathy for them.

Well, I didn't do it twice. >>shrugs and walks away<<

hildaj. I think you are a star. Huge respect.